


Would you like that regular or express delivery?

by Arxsia



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Comfort, Delivery Boy Demyx, Existential Angst, M/M, Post Re:Mind, Post-Canon, Zemyx - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22566946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arxsia/pseuds/Arxsia
Summary: Being human is a hell of a trip, but it helps if you have a companion to face it with. In which Demyx and Ienzo talk and try to figure themselves out.If I lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world? Show me a garden that's bursting into life.
Relationships: Demyx/Ienzo (Kingdom Hearts), Demyx/Zexion (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	Would you like that regular or express delivery?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Re:Mind and, especially more so, by a fun conversation in our Zemyx discord server about Demyx becoming Radiant Garden's resident delivery boy. Thank you to the lovely members there, for the idea and wonderful support as I wrote this. <3
> 
> Also inspired by the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, which I definitely recommend listening to as you read this.

Apparently, he was actually pretty damn good at this whole delivery service thing. Who would’ve thought carrying around a few replica bodies in the war against Xehanort would give him a sense of purpose, more than anything else ever really has. For as long as he could remember anyway.

It had started out as a way to just kill time, to make himself useful while putting in the minimal amount of effort he was willing to expend. Killing time was one of his philosophies, if you could call it one. Kill some time until the next exciting thing comes along, live life from one significant event to the next. He’d always been a ‘go with the flow’ sort of guy, at least since his life as a Nobody began. Like hell if he knew what he was like before then.

Could you imagine? Demyx - minus the x and unscrambled - something or other, being a serious, hardworking guy? Ha! Nah, that probably wasn’t him.

Not that he’d know.

If he even  _ wanted  _ to know.

But that was an entirely different problem he was currently keeping compartmentalized somewhere in the back of his mind while he dealt with the other major problem that now plagued him.

It was late afternoon, a little bit before the time when the sun would start setting, and Demyx found himself lying for several hours now in one of the castle’s gardens, hands pillowing his head and aqua gaze pointed at the sky. He’d finished his deliveries early that day and all the extra time left his mind buzzing incessantly. It was simply one of  _ those  _ days, the ones where thoughts were loud and  _ feeling  _ ran deep. It was far from an enjoyable experience, and he was still very much adjusting to being human, even now, several months after the whole big battle against Xehanort had gone down. 

Normally, he’d be able to drown it out in a melody. Acquiring a guitar with the munny he’d earned from his first month or so of deliveries had been a blessing. He’d missed music with a burning ache, and while the castle surprisingly housed a grand piano he made plenty use of, it simply wasn’t the same as having something much more portable.

Unfortunately, this was an  _ exceptionally  _ difficult day, with  _ too-loud  _ thoughts and more feeling than he knew how to handle. Not even his still-shiny guitar, lying uselessly next to him, could provide sufficient respite from the tumultuous storm of  _ humanity  _ coursing through him. 

Why had he agreed to being reformed again? Ah, yeah. The answer was the full package of Ansem’s kind yet intimidating wisdom, Vex- no,  _ Even’s _ mind-numbing scientific-ranting intelligence, Aeleus’s surprising gentleness, and Dilan’s… very-much-not-Xaldin Dilan-ness, all wrapped up in the pretty-faced bow that was Ienzo’s calm and  _ much  _ too patient persuasion. It was amazing how different Ienzo was from Zexion - warmer, much less intimidating, with smiles that lit up whole rooms. And yet, Demyx could pick out bits he remembered from Zexion - the sass, for one, which was ever so slightly less sharp, but undoubtedly still there; not to mention his ability to command attention and keep it on him, whether he was aware of it or not.

Ienzo’s velvet-voiced persuasion had been the final nail in Nobody-Demyx’s coffin. And now Somebody-Demyx was left with the pieces of this enormous puzzle called humanity, without so much as a picture of what it was supposed to look like to guide him.

And then it came, a pulse of feeling, ripples of  _ something  _ fluttering across Demyx’s chest, an increasingly common occurrence whenever he started to think just a little too much about Ienzo.

“Aaaaarrghh,  _ come on _ …!” Demyx furiously scrubbed at his face with a groan, wiggling about on the ground as if that would diffuse whatever it was he was feeling now.

“Demyx?”

Well,  _ speak of the devil _ . Demyx lowered his hands from his face, and another flutter of emotion wafted over him as Ienzo stood over him with a soft expression of mild concern, laced with just a hint of amusement.

“Ah… H-hey, Ienzo.”

“Am I… interrupting?”

“Mm, nah. I was just… uh, cloud gazing.” It wasn’t quite a lie. He  _ had  _ been cloud gazing, or trying to.

“Finished with your deliveries for today?” Ienzo did one of those cute little head tilts, the ones where his curtain of bangs swept ever so slightly  _ away  _ from his face, providing a teasing glimpse into his other eye and, seriously, they had  _ no  _ right being that damn bright and blue.

“Um. …Yeah.”

Ienzo frowned. “Are you alright, Demyx? You seem… distracted. I could continue on my way if you prefer to be alone today.”

Demyx went quiet at that, considering it.  _ Did  _ he want to be alone? Not really. But could he handle Ienzo’s company right this moment?  _ That  _ he couldn’t be sure of, not with the way Ienzo’s mere presence was affecting him. He realized then that Ienzo must be out on one of his walks, the ones they often took together after Demyx finished his day’s deliveries and Ienzo was looking for a conversational partner that wasn’t one of his surrogate fathers. It simply happened one day and eventually became a little routine for them. Had Ienzo come looking for him then? The thought alone made him feel… warm.

Taking Demyx’s prolonged silence as an answer, Ienzo turned to leave, nearly tripping over himself when a hand shot out to grab his ankle.

“Wait! Don’t… don’t go.” There was a helplessness in Demyx’s tone that gaze Ienzo pause, that held him in place, rendering him unable to turn back to meet the blond’s eyes quite yet.

“Why don’t you lay with me? Here. LayherewithmeImean,notlike-...” Demyx cleared his throat as he heard that back in his own head. Cheeks suddenly warm, he released Ienzo’s ankle. “Let’s lie here,  _ in the grass _ . Let’s… Let’s lie here and forget the world, yeah?”

Finally, Ienzo turned, bearing a smile that Demyx could swear was almost haunted. “Alright.”

As Demyx tried to make himself comfortable again, Ienzo settled down beside him, and Demyx couldn’t help but notice he didn’t leave much space between them. They lay there in silence for a while, simply watching the sky change from blue to yellow to orange and red, an endlessly slow show of colors that only served to remind Demyx that he was  _ alive _ . He was alive and here and-... and nothing. All he had was this recompleted body, his delivery job, the looming castle that currently served as “home,” the guitar at his side, and his… friend(?) at the other. No name. No memories; not even an inkling of them, save for the hint from Xemnas about Demyx’s keyblade legacy, if he could even believe that was true. Did it matter? Did he  _ want  _ it to matter?

And then there was  _ feeling _ . Hearts were heavy with feeling, and his was no exception, even with his lack of memory. The guilt of serving Xemnas, lazily done as it was. The pride of a good day’s work, of knowing that, in some small yet significant way, he was a reason Roxas and Namine were also alive. Hardest of all was this… magnetism he was feeling with Ienzo, and the, dare he say it,  _ attraction  _ he was progressively feeling toward the man lying beside him.

The garden was exceptionally quiet. That, or Demyx was too hyper-focused on the body next to his, on the sound of Ienzo’s breathing, on the slate-blue of Ienzo’s hair in the corner of his vision.

“How do you do it?” Demyx finally spoke, trying and somewhat failing to keep the frustration out of his voice.

Ienzo turned to him, gaze questioning. “How do I do… what?”

“How do you…” Demyx sighed, turning to him. “How are you so well put together? How are you not just  _ overwhelmed with feelings  _ all the time? Work’s a nice distraction, but it doesn’t last the whole day. I’m stuck in my own head the rest of the time, and let me tell you, it’s not fun there. I don’t get how you can just…  _ live _ , feeling things. It’s such a  _ pain _ . I’m pretty sure we were able to feel things even as Nobodies, but it wasn’t anywhere  _ near  _ as intense as this.”

“You think I’m well put together?”

“Uh,  _ yeah _ .”

And then Ienzo laughed, soft at first, but quickly building into something so incredulous that had Demyx wondering if he should be hurt, if Ienzo was laughing  _ at  _ him.

“Demyx, I’m not put together at  _ all _ . You were there for my reunion with Master Ansem.” Ienzo’s hand went over his chest, clutching at the fabric of his sweater. His gaze, definitely haunted now, turned back to the sky above them. “The guilt of everything I’ve done… I still feel it.  _ Every day _ . Even now, so many months later.”   
  
“What?  _ Seriously _ ?!”

“Yes.” Sighing, Ienzo continued. “We may have won the war against Xehanort. We may have restored Roxas and Namine. We’re even assisting in Kairi’s and Riku’s search for a clue to Sora. But I will never stop trying to atone for what I’ve done. And these…  _ feelings  _ are so…  _ suffocating _ .” His free hand came up, fingertips brushing against the fabric of his purple ascot. It seemed to be a habit. “It’s why I go on these walks regularly.”

Demyx realized then that Ienzo must take these walks whenever the castle began to feel too big and too small all at once, when the air of the lab got too stuffy, when memories of being Zexion were likely to creep up on him and he would start to feel like he was, well, suffocating. He didn’t know exactly how Zexion was taken down. He wasn’t sure Ienzo could or would tell him yet, if at all.

“Your presence at most these walks has been, admittedly, of great help in my maintaining composure around everyone else. The others, they’ve known me since I was a boy. They mean well, but I fear they would smother me with some sort of parental concern or misguided attempts to make me stop feeling this way, which they  _ can’t _ . But you… Well, you’ve proven yourself trustworthy enough. And we’ve known each other long enough, as both Demyx and Zexion and now as reformed Demyx and Ienzo, that I feel comfortable talking to you, but not so long that you should have some warped version of me in your mind. At least, I hope you don’t. You struggled with my name at first, but I trust you know I’m not Zexion. …I certainly  _ hope _ I’m not Zexion.” He turned back to Demyx, a silent question swirling in blue eyes full of anticipation and, was that fear?

“Nah,” Demyx easily replied with a shake of his head and a smile. “You’re not Zexion. You kept a tiny bit of his sass and whatever it was that made him the most magnetizing person in the room, but you’re easier to talk to, and you’re loads more patient with idiots like me, and you practically glow every time you smile, like, I definitely wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

It wasn’t until Ienzo’s cheeks turned a shade of pink and he started looking a little flustered that Demyx realized what had just come out of his mouth. He fumbled for something, anything to say to backtrack or make this much less awkward than it was quickly turning into, but Ienzo beat him to speaking, the conviction in his voice throwing Demyx for a loop. “You’re not an idiot.”

Demyx leveled him with a flat look. “I’m a delivery boy, not a scientist like you geniuses.”

Shaking his head, Zexion persisted. “That still doesn’t mean you’re an idiot. You simply have different skills, a different sort of intelligence. You’re certainly smart enough to keep track of all the packages you deliver on a daily basis. Not to mention the way you… The way you make music; that doesn’t come from an idiot. It’s impressive. Incredible, even.”

It was Demyx’s turn to flush, heart fluttering with an urge to scoot closer. Surely there was some way to salvage the wild train that was this conversation? “Ah, thanks Ienzo, really, but I’m not-”

“You’re worth more than you give yourself credit for, Demyx. No, you’re no scientist, but I’m convinced you’re more intelligent than you let on sometimes.” Ienzo turned away to admire the sky above them once more, sucking in a deep breath before he continued. “For what it’s worth… I truly  _ do  _ appreciate your company. And it’s comforting… to know I’m not the only one feeling lost. I’m grateful to have you to share this struggle with, in learning to be human again.”

“ _ Me _ ?” Demyx was having a hard time understanding how he was in any way helpful. He was just Demyx. Nothing special. Nobody. A coward who ran from most things. A delivery boy, because that’s all he was good for, apart from his music. Sure, he was lazy, but he didn’t want to be  _ useless _ .

“Well, yes. Out of everyone in the old Organization, you’re the only one who could even remotely understand… Marluxia, Larxene, and Luxord are all gone, not that I particularly cared for any of them anyway. Lea, Isa, Roxas, Xion, and Namine all have each other. ...I don’t exactly feel comfortable enough near Lea or Isa and the others have the luxury of being young enough that they have plenty of time to grow and experience things as would be expected of them at this age, with the security of their deep connection and the rest of their friends in Twilight Town to hold them together. Even, Aeleus, and Dilan, they were already adults when all this began. They  _ know  _ who they were before they become Nobodies. They, at least, have some frame of reference to draw from. I was a  _ child _ . Who, or what, am I supposed to be  _ now _ ? At least until you remember who you are, you’re likely as lost as I am, correct?”

“Yeeaahhh…?”

“Mmn. So you’re the optimal companion for me on this journey of self-discovery.”

“...In other words, I’m just convenient.” Demyx’s chest constricted in a way he very much didn’t like, the implication of Ienzo’s words feeling like pin pricks all along his skin.

“What?” Ienzo turned quickly, rolling onto his side to fully face Demyx, an apology in his gaze, both eyes visible now as his hair fell away with the movement. “No, that’s not what I meant. That is... I suppose  _ technically  _ yes, but that’s not how I see you.”

Demyx frowned. Above them, the sky was growing slowly darker, fading back into shades of blue to lead into the navy-black blanket of night. Everything felt  _ heavy _ . His body was a lead weight, sure to sink into the earth any moment now. He’d welcome it at this point. If all he was was convenient… “How  _ do  _ you see me, then?”

“I…” Ienzo flushed then, and Demyx didn’t know what to make of it. Was that a good thing? Or was Ienzo simply embarrassed for putting his foot in his mouth?

Sighing, Demyx moved to sit up, only Ienzo wouldn’t let him, hands shooting out to grab at his shirt to stop him. He sighed again, rolling onto his side as well, lying face to face with Ienzo. “Look, I don’t mind being convenient, it kinda goes with the whole delivery job anyway, but I don’t wanna be  _ just convenient  _ for  _ you _ .”

“I find myself thinking about you,” Ienzo answered, without missing a beat this time. “Quite often, actually. Even when you’re not with me.”

Demyx was sure he felt his stomach flip at that, and he didn’t miss the way Ienzo’s hands clutched his shirt tighter. “You do?”

“Whatever your reasons for helping us, for bringing us those replicas and reuniting me with Ansem, I’m forever grateful to you for that. But, then you stayed. I know it’s because you don’t recall a home to return  _ to _ , but you could’ve just as well picked anywhere else to go, or decided to go wherever the stars may lead you. Yet you chose this big castle full of stuffy scientists, myself included, and stuffy as I may be, you  _ still  _ actively choose to speak with me, to spend time with me, on a regular basis. Perhaps it is all a bit convenient, but is it so bad if it  _ is _ ? It doesn’t change how I feel.”

“How you feel…?”

Ienzo dropped his gaze, staring at Demyx’s shirt and where his hands had settled. Could he feel Demyx’s heartbeat? Was it matching his? 

“...I  _ like  _ you, Demyx. I keep having these urges to-”

Demyx didn’t give him a chance to finish, pressing his lips to Ienzo’s. The kiss started slow, tentative, experimental. He took the opportunity, but he didn’t want to push. This might very well be Ienzo’s first kiss (had  _ Zexion  _ kissed anyone??) and since Demyx couldn’t remember his life before, this may as well be his first kiss too.

Ienzo didn’t pull away. If anything, he moved closer, tilting his head to get a better angle, and Demyx was convinced they were floating now, his head thrumming with the rhythmic, pulsing beat of his heart. Everything else no longer mattered. His past? Why should he care, when he could  _ feel  _ a  _ future  _ here. The overwhelming burden of being human again? Well, now he had Ienzo - a friend, or possibly more, a  _ partner _ , to walk through life with, no longer to  _ kill  _ time but to  _ fill  _ it while they tried to solve this puzzle called humanity, together.

Breathless, Demyx broke the kiss and burst into laughter, the sound bubbling with mirth in the same way his heart currently felt. Okay, so maybe  _ this  _ part of feeling, of being human, wasn’t so bad. He was pleased to discover Ienzo was breathless as well, catching Demyx’s infectious laughter and joining him, hands  _ still  _ clasping at his shirt.

“I like you too, Ienzo” Demyx replied, when he was finally able to contain his delighted giggles.

And, even though it was now nighttime, Ienzo’s responding smile lit up the entire garden. “Kiss me again?”

Feeling cheeky, Demyx couldn’t help but ask, “Would you like that regular or express delivery?”

Ienzo chuckled, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “I’ll take express, please.”

“Another kiss, express delivery,  _ coming right up _ .”


End file.
